Opinion: It’s Wrong that Many Essential Workers are Still Uninsured
Today I helped my parents order some groceries via Instacart. It’s hard to overstate how important these essential workers have been to enable us to comply with the stay-at-home order. These Instacart workers and other ‘essential workers’ including grocery clerks, home care aides, nursing home workers, and fast-food workers are continually putting their lives on the line for the greater good. A lot of people recognize this and there have been multiple campaigns to donate PPE to them.
Here’s the sad reality.
Many of these ‘essential workers’ are uninsured and under-insured. They are taking care of us at their own risk, but their employers (and contracting organizations) have failed to take care of them. Over the last four weeks, many of these workers have called Vitable asking how they could become members.
They tell us the same story over and over again. ‘I’m afraid of getting sick and not even being able to afford to get tested.’ I don’t believe this should be the case. As we celebrate their heroic work, we should also consider if it’s ok that they put their lives on the line without having healthcare coverage.
There was recently a case of nursing home employees in California that failed to show up to work once a significant number of the residents contracted the coronavirus. Now, I don’t know why they didn’t show up to work nor do I condone their actions. However, in an attempt to try to understand why they did what they did, it’s hard not to take into account their health. Assuming they were insured, they most likely had a high deductible health plan which means they’re essentially uninsured until they use up their deductible’s worth of health services.
For a nursing home employee making $10 per hour, it takes two months of salary just to pay for the $3,700 average family deductible until their insurance kicks in.
There’s also a high chance that they were uninsured.
They get paid too much to qualify for their state’s Medicaid plan and too little to afford any health insurance. 40 million Americans fell into this scenario and another 38 million were under-insured before the pandemic. This number is likely much higher now.
Over the last four weeks, Vitable has partnered with many essential businesses to provide their employees with free acute and preventative healthcare coverage. This is something I’m extremely proud of. For instance, a home care company with close to 500 employees decided to offer and pay for Vitable for all their Philadelphia employees as a way of thanking them for their diligent, essential work during these trying times.
These employees have used Vitable for minor things like strep and a bit more serious things like COVID-19 tests. We significantly lowered our prices to make these deals happen because we want to give back during these difficult times. If your company is interested in partnering with us to provide your employees with coverage for the most frequently needed healthcare services, we’d love to chat.
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